Anti-immigrant Parties and Political Participation of Immigrants

We investigate whether and how the presence of anti-immigrant parties affects the political participation of first- and second-generation Muslim immigrants in 19 Western-European countries, using six rounds of the European Social Survey. First, we test whether the popularity of anti-immigrant parties discourages or encourages Muslim immigrants to participate in electoral and non-electoral politics. We study both forms of participation as immigrants are often faced with legal restrictions to participate in electoral politics, and because it has been suggested that immigrants prefer to engage in movement politics which requires less human and political capital than electoral politics. Furthermore, we investigate whether specific groups of immigrants are differentially affected by anti-immigrant parties. We anticipate that second-generation, higher-educated and younger immigrants may be less hindered by language issues and lack of political knowledge than their first-generation, lower-educated and older counterparts and therefore are more likely to participate in both non-electoral and electoral politics.